"I'm sure you're aware of the attack last year at Moynihan," the dark haired man who's name tag declared him to be Dr Alcorn said while picking up a remote and turning on the flatscreen TV mounted to the wall.
"Yea," Amelia replied and looked up to see what was obviously CCTV footage of dozens of people strolling through a train station with bright daylight streaming in through a glass ceiling.
It was an image she had seen plastered all over the news, the open atrium with the vaulted support beams and blue Moynihan Train Hall sign. The people looked completely normal, the hustle and bustle of commuters focused on their own morning routines with very little attention to spare to anyone around them. Amelia picked out one man sitting on a three legged stool next to one of the triangular pillars with a 13/14 printed at the peak. A glass partition separated him from the escalator going down, a violin case open on the ground in front of him. Amelia watched him intently while he played to all the indifferent people passing by.
"I... I don't understand," Amelia said after a moment and swiped her fingers through her bangs dyed a bright green this week, "How does this have..."
"Just a moment and I hope it will start to make since," Dr Alcorn cut in.
"We already know that the attacks are delivered through an aerosol, and we know... well, what they do," he continued.
Amelia couldn't take her eyes away from the recorded footage playing out on the TV, people walking along completely oblivious to what was about to happen.
"I'm sure you've already heard that there is little lasting physical harm done by these attacks, a few people have had heart attacks, a few broken bones and contusions, even some incidents of STD transmission," Dr Alcorn said while consulting a clipboard in his hand, "The true harm tends to be psychological and emotional as well as the secondary hand harm that has been inflicted on people's personal relationships."
"But I heard that nearly sixty women were killed in the attack in.... ummm, I think it was called Jedi Station... like in Star Wars?" Amelia said while still watching the TV.
"Ahh, Jeddah, yes," Dr Alcorn said with a nod, "But the attack itself didn't cause those deaths, but the... the aftermath afterwards."
"You mean they were beaten to death for doing nothing wrong?" Amelia said with a hint of anger.
"Well, um, what we are trying to learn more about is the mental state and physiological effects that happen just before and during an attack," the doctor said by way of changing the subject.
Amelia caught a hint of something happening on the TV screen, but it took her a moment to realize what it was. People were suddenly stopping in their tracks, the motion seeming to spread like a ripple across a pond from the right hand of the screen to the left until all the movement had come to a stop. Amelia picked out the violin player again, his bow frozen in midair while still held up against the strings of his instrument. Amelia tried to hide a shiver at the thought of that hall being full of mannequins and not real human beings.
"We've never released this part of the footage to the general public for obvious reasons," the doctor said while watching the TV, "We have over a hundred volunteers including you for a blind study of human sexuality, fifty men and fifty women. You've all been screened for STD's, all signed wavers for a sexual behavior study and have had medical transducers attached."
Amelia reached up unconsciously to rub at the small round skin toned patch that had been attached to the back of her neck. The patch was sealed in place with some sort of glue so that there wasn't even a seam for her fingernails to catch at and there were similar patches attached to her stomach and inner thigh.
"The transducers will be monitoring blood pressure, heart rate, skin temperature, sweat response as well as physiological indications of arousal such as vaginal secretions for women and erections for men," Dr Alcorn continued, "The only difference is that you and five others will have foreknowledge of what is about to happen."
Amelia was watching the TV as a second ripple swept across the floor of the station. Starting on the right and quickly spreading to the left people began to rub their arms, faces and chests before suddenly beginning to strip. Clothes were ripped off and tossed about while people continued to rub at their exposed skin. Amelia's eyes widened when people suddenly began to pair off and in some cases with multiple men surrounding and then coupling with a single woman. She tried to find her violin player in the mass of skin toned flesh but was only able to find his overturned stool next to a forgotten violin case.
"I still don't understand," Amelia said breathlessly while watching the mass of humans writing on the floor of the train station, "I know about the King's Cross and Romini Termini attacks, but how do you know where the next one will be for us to get... exposed?"
"The 'next one' as you say will be right here," the doctor continued, "We've been able to get samples of and duplicate the chemical compound in the aerosol that was used and as soon as we brief you and the other participants that are to be forewarned you'll be taken down to an auditorium where the experiment will begin."
"Do you mean I'm going to be exposed to the 'Make Love, Not War' drug?" Amelia asked in shock.
In the days before each attack there had been hundreds, maybe even thousands of flyers scattered around each of the cities that had been hit. Bright yellow slips of paper printed with 'Make Love, Not War' on one side with a list of demands on the opposite ranging from getting rid of all nuclear weapons, disarming all soldiers the world over to even the forced reeducation of all men to curb their violent patriarchal tendencies.
"Exactly," Dr Alcorn replied with a smile, "We want a control group, a limited number of individuals who can monitor their mental state before as well as during the exposure and then report back to us in detail.
"If you're still willing to participate then all we ask is that you pay particular attention to what you are thinking, what you are feeling and to tell us in detail what those thoughts and feelings were after the experiment."
Amelia could feel the palms of her hands sweating and looked up at the TV screen and all the different couples that were still... well, not making love, what those people were doing was too primal, to animalistic to be anything other than fucking.
Amelia found that she was panting while watching all of those naked bodies. She had always had a fantasy about having multiple lovers at once, but this?
"I don't know," Amelia said hesitantly, "I don't know if I can do... that."
"If you decide to proceed I'm positive you wont have any issues at all 'doing that'," Dr Alcorn replied, "There hasn't been a single individual past puberty who was able to resist the effects of the drug in the moment."
